Day 21-送礼的科学：怎样送礼你的挚爱不会退还？

标题：The science of giving gifts your loved ones won't want to return

Trying to find an ideal gift for a friend or family member, or at least something that won't end up in the trash, is perennial source of pre-holiday anxiety.

perennial 长期存在的，经久不衰的，反复发生的

gift-giving combines economics and psychology, and those two academic fields have grown ever more entwined in recent years.

entwined  adj. 紧密结合的，不可分离的

造句：The fates of both countries are entwined.

So before struggling to sort through the likes, dislikes, quirks and wishes of the people...

sort through  整理，筛选   sort through information

quirk  n.怪癖，古怪之处

In some areas of gift-giving, the research is in flux.

the received wisdom in behavioral economics has been that buying experiences, or giving them as gifts, produces more happiness over the long run than purchased material things do.

received wisdom 公认观点

in flux  处于不断的变化中

over the long run  长期上，长远看来

Experiences are thought to trump material goods for several reasons。

trump sth 打败，胜过 = beat

比较：win a game, be defeated

And material goods are easily compared against rival goods, or against things friends and acquaintances own, which fosters discontentedness. Experiences are more idiosyncratic, effectively blocking such comparisons.

discontentedness 不满情绪，不满足

idiosyncratic  特殊的  idiosyncracy    idio- 自己

Yet other researchers have recently pushed back against the "buy experiences" conventional wisdom.

push back against sth  反击，拒绝，排斥

experiences given as gifts sparked brief, intense bursts of happiness

spark 产生，引起

burst   n. 突然增加，爆发      a burst of laughter/anger

objects received as gifts tend to produce modest and consistent happiness, whereas experiences given as gifts sparked brief, intense bursts of happiness.

So sometimes it comes down to which kind of happiness you wish to convey.

come down to sth 归结为，取决于

造句：It all comes down to money in the end.